The New South Wales waratah (Telopea speciosissima) is a large shrub in the family Proteaceae. Endemic to New South Wales, Australia, it is the floral emblem of that state. It grows as a shrub to 3–4 m (10–13 ft) high and 2 m (7 ft) wide, with dark green leaves and several stems rising from a pronounced woody base known as a lignotuber. During the spring it has striking large red flowerheads, each made up of hundreds of individual flowers. These are visited by the eastern pygmy possum (Cercartetus nanus), birds such as honeyeaters (Meliphagidae) and insects. T. speciosissima has featured prominently in art, architecture and advertising. No subspecies are recognised, but cultivars with various shades of red, pink and white flowers are commercially grown in several countries as a cut flower. The shrub can be difficult to cultivate in home gardens, requiring good drainage and being vulnerable to fungal disease and pests. ( Full article...)

Oakland California Temple

• ... that the Federal Aviation Administration uses the brightly lit Oakland California Temple (pictured) as a navigation beacon, despite complaints about light pollution?
• ... that Will Tschetter had the highest scoring average in Minnesota in basketball and won the state discus throw championship?
• ... that within the Armenian Rite, it takes 40 days and more than 40 flowers, herbs, and spices to create the chrism known as myron?
• ... that because karaoke sounds like the Japanese word for 'coffin', Shigeichi Negishi called his karaoke machine prototype the "Sparko Box"?
• ... that the developers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas walked out of the Game Developers Choice Awards after winning nothing?
• ... that Wilner Burke was the director of the Lumberjack Band, the marching band of the Green Bay Packers, for 42 years?
• ... that as part of the Apollo 17 Biostack experiment scientists found that cosmic rays could cause brine shrimp larvae to grow two abdomens or have short limbs?
• ... that actress Mattie Edwards was made a US deputy marshal at the age of sixteen?
• ... that the design on a New Zealand coin was incorrectly alleged to represent a "personified phallus"?

Peter Higgs

• Nobel Prize–winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs (pictured) dies at the age of 94.
• A total solar eclipse appears across parts of North America.
• In NCAA Division I basketball, the South Carolina Gamecocks win the women's championship and the UConn Huskies win the men's championship.
• Mexico breaks diplomatic relations with Ecuador in response to Ecuadorian police forcibly entering the Mexican embassy in Quito.
• A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes near Hualien City, Taiwan.

April 10: Eid al-Fitr (Islam, 2024)

M87* imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope

• 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: The War of the Fifth Coalition began with the Austrian invasion of Bavaria, then a client state of France.
• 1925 – The novel The Great Gatsby by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald was first published by Scribner's.
• 1970 – In the midst of business disagreements with his bandmates, Paul McCartney announced his departure from the Beatles.
• 1973 – In the deadliest aviation accident in Swiss history, Invicta International Airlines Flight 435 crashed into a hillside near Hochwald, killing 108 people of 145 on board.
• 2019 – Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope project released the first image of a black hole (depicted), located at the center of the galaxy M87.